From Gutenberg to Google and on to AI

Before he became chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 2013, Tom Wheeler started or helped found several companies offering new cable, wireless, and video communications services. He is also a historian with a deep interest in how the events and trends of today reflect—or don’t—what happened in the past.

• Contents:AcknowledgmentsPrefaceProloguePart I: Perspective1. Connections Have ConsequencesPart II: Predicates2. The Original Information Revolution3. The First High-Speed Network and the Death of Distance4. The First Electronic Network and the End of TimePart III: The Road to Revolution5. Computing Engines6. Connected Computing7. The Planet's Most Powerful and Pervasive PlatformPart IV: Our Turn8. The History We Are Making9. Connecting ForwardEpilogueNotesIndex

Sometimes we have to take a step back in order to understand what’s under our noses. With his entertaining account of three historical network revolutions, and the reactions they inspired, Tom Wheeler gives us the tools to understand the one we are living through today—and where it might take us tomorrow.